Findings Stun Even Paterno’s Ardent Supporters

Those who supported Joe Paterno in the aftermath of the Sandusky scandal found little relief in the Freeh investigation.Credit
Matt Rourke/Associated Press

Since the Penn State child sexual abuse scandal became public late last year, when the eminent football coach Joe Paterno was fired for failing to do more to stop the convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky, there has nonetheless been no shortage of support within the Penn State community for the man known affectionately as JoePa.

Some had hoped additional investigation would reveal a diminished level of wrongdoing by Mr. Paterno, who died in January. Others believed a more complete examination would depict any transgression by Mr. Paterno as a minor, one-time lapse.

But the release Thursday of the findings of an independent investigation of the scandal instead targeted Mr. Paterno along with three other senior university officials, blaming them for deliberately hiding facts about Mr. Sandusky’s predatory conduct for more than a decade. A new, pivotal finding of the investigation overseen by Louis J. Freeh, the former federal judge and director of the F.B.I., was that Mr. Paterno knew as early as 1998 that there were concerns about Mr. Sandusky’s inappropriate behavior with children. It spawned an internal review, which Mr. Freeh said Mr. Paterno followed closely. It was an investigation that Mr. Paterno, through his family after Mr. Sandusky’s arrest, previously maintained he knew nothing about.

These latest details stunned and saddened even those at the core of Mr. Paterno’s ardent fan base on the university’s campus in State College, Pa., where Mr. Paterno was long viewed as a benevolent, almost mythical father figure celebrated with ice cream flavors and sandwich shops named in his honor.

At the student center known as the HUB, about 20 students gathered before a second-floor large-screen television to view Mr. Freeh’s news conference, during which he emphatically implicated Mr. Paterno in a cover-up of Mr. Sandusky’s abuse.

One of those watching, Katie Wismer, a freshman from Easton, Pa., said she had expected bad news from the report although she held out hope for something else. What she found most disappointing, she said, was “that Joe didn’t do more. That Joe aspect just kind of broke my heart a little.”

“I was just really upset for the victims,” Ms. Knoll, of Lebanon, Pa., said. “That really got me, how the children — I’m an education major — had to suffer when they didn’t have to because of Paterno. I loved him so much, just the fact that he didn’t do more really hurt me.”

Ms. Knoll, who said attending Penn State had been a dream, added: “When someone like Joe Paterno — who I really looked up to — I originally thought he did all he could, but in the report it obviously wasn’t true. It was just really hurtful to hear what actually happened.”

The news about Mr. Paterno reverberated across the country. Nike announced it would change the name of the Joe Paterno Child Development Center, a child-care facility at the company’s headquarters in Beaverton, Ore.

“It is a terrible tragedy that children were unprotected from such abhorrent crimes,” said Mark Parker, Nike’s chief executive and president.

And Phil Knight, Nike’s founder, who defended Mr. Paterno at the coach’s memorial service in January, said in a statement: “It appears Joe made missteps that led to heartbreaking consequences. I missed that Joe missed it.”

The former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, who is second behind Mr. Paterno in career major-college victories, said in a telephone interview that Penn State should remove a statue of Mr. Paterno that stands outside Beaver Stadium “for his family’s sake.”

“They’re going to have football games there and when people see the statue they’re going to think of the Sandusky stuff,” Mr. Bowden said, adding of Mr. Paterno, “It’s a shame that a guy does so many good things for such a long time and then something like this happens.”

Mr. Paterno’s family in recent months has begun an orchestrated effort to protect the once-luminous legacy of the coach, who not only won more football games than any major college coach but donated millions of dollars to foster academics and assiduously promoted Penn State as a place of righteousness and honor.

Photo

Penn State students watched Louis J. Freeh’s televised news conference on the investigation at the student center on campus. Freeh implicated Joe Paterno in a cover-up.Credit
Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

The Paternos have hired an influential lawyer and contracted the services of a public relations firm. Anticipating Mr. Freeh’s report, the family preemptively issued a statement Tuesday, and Joe Paterno’s son Jay appeared on the “Today” show Thursday morning. About an hour after Mr. Freeh’s news conference, the family issued another lengthy statement.

“The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept,” the statement read. “The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn’t fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events. Sandusky was a great deceiver. He fooled everyone — law enforcement, his family, coaches, players, neighbors, university officials, and everyone at Second Mile,” the charity he founded.

The statement acknowledged that Mr. Paterno should have pushed his superiors to see if they were “doing their jobs.”

“Joe Paterno mistakenly believed that investigators, law enforcement officials, university leaders and others would properly and fully investigate any issue and proceed as the facts dictated,” the statement continued. “This didn’t happen and everyone shares the responsibility.”

When it came to Mr. Paterno on Thursday, there was an anomalous duality to the day and the situation that seemed evident at every turn. Even as he was recounting the damning evidence against Mr. Paterno, Mr. Freeh was careful to laud his many accomplishments, both on and off the field — a rare mixture of commentary in such a setting.

Mr. Freeh expressed great respect for Mr. Paterno, who was once so popular in Pennsylvania there was a movement to have him run for governor.

Several hours later, Karen B. Peetz, the chairwoman of the Penn State board of trustees, appeared likewise conflicted when trying to sum up the proceedings, saying, “The 61 years of excellent service that Joe gave to the university is now marred.”

Lou Prato, who has written several books about Penn State football and is considered a historian of the program that came to define Penn State as an institution, suggested that there may always be a rift when it comes to Mr. Paterno.

“There has always been an anti-Paterno faction of people and this will solidify them,” Mr. Prato said. “But it will also make a lot of people sad. All of the good things he did will remain part of his reputation, but we all make mistakes and this was a big one.”

Bill Earley, a former football booster, also conceded the differences of opinion in the greater Penn State community, but insisted that the details of Thursday’s report will forever change the way Mr. Paterno would be perceived nationally.

“This is a permanent, ugly, black mark,” Mr. Earley said. “It will never go away. It will tarnish him and it will be unforgettable.”

John Nichols was a professor at Penn State for 33 years and an associate dean until his recent retirement. He was also on the search committee to find Mr. Paterno’s replacement, Bill O’Brien, and is chairman of a committee of faculty, staff, students and alumni looking at the Penn State governance structure in the wake of the scandal involving Mr. Sandusky.

“Joe Paterno embodied what Penn State thought it stood for,” Mr. Nichols said. “And it is inescapable that he did tremendously positive things for Penn State and intercollegiate athletics over all because of what he believed in.

“But the foundation of all that has been knocked out from underneath us.”

Outside Beaver Stadium, the home of Penn State football, where more than 100,000 fans will almost certainly still gather for the Nittany Lions’ next home game in September, the larger-than-life statue of Mr. Paterno remained a focal point of visitors and the news media throughout Thursday.

On a wall near the statue there is a quote from Mr. Paterno: “They ask me what I’d like written about me when I’m gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach.”

Tim Rohan reported from State College, Pa.

A version of this article appears in print on July 13, 2012, on page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: The Paterno Legacy, Changed Forever. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe